Faolan pressed his nose into her palm, breath warm on her skin. He opened his mouth wider, exposing the rest of his strong white teeth, and licked her hand.
Humming softly, Cailleach stirred the contents of an iron kettle over the fire. Pausing, she lifted the ladle to taste the spice-scented stew. “Not much longer.”
Aisling thought of the sweet berries she’d expected to have this day and said nothing.
Cailleach stepped closer. Steadying herself on the scarred wooden table that took up the bulk of the area, she looked over at the wolf. “I told you it would be today, Faolan.”
The wolf tilted his muzzle and yipped.
“Hmph!” Cailleach snorted. She set out a plate of bread and a crock of honey, pausing to wipe her hands before continuing, “Maybe she’ll realize how well your hide would line a new cloak, hmm?”
Faolan huffed, licked Aisling’s hand again, and turned away. After much scuffling on the worn floor, he settled with his tail end facing Cailleach.
“Big beast forgets his place. You’ll need to remind him who’s master here.” Cailleach settled into her chair and nudged the wolf with her foot, tucking her bare toes under his side and smiling at him. “He’s a good listener, our Faolan. And he’ll keep you safe in the bright season, when the air is too warm for you to leave the cabin.”
“I haven’t decided,” Aisling murmured.
Cailleach smiled. “I know, but I am hopeful.”
With a steadier hand than she’d expected, Aisling lifted a piece of still-warm bread. “How long do we have?”
Cailleach glanced out the window, squinting as she faced the spring sun. “A few more days.”
Over the next days, Aisling’s doubts and desires flourished.
Each evening, when Cailleach slept, Aisling explored with Faolan, settled on the wolf’s strong back when the terrain was unsteady.
Each night, Donnchadh called to her, “Aisling, I miss you…. Come with me.”
And she went. She spent her nights lost in dance with him, barefoot on the soft mosses of the forest, tempted by his constant whispered flattery. Refusing the lure of Summer himself was not easy—nor what she wanted.
Each dawn, she sat with Cailleach, listening as the old woman shared her knowledge.
And all the while, Donnchadh beckoned from the wood. “Aisling, the daffodils are blooming. Come.”
Finally, one morn when Aisling returned from her nocturnal wandering, Cailleach stood in the clearing beside the cabin. She leaned heavily on her staff and gazed into the wood as sunrise broke.
“Cailleach?” Aisling ran to her. Cailleach could not face the full warmth of the sun without feeling ill, not for long.
“Once, long ago, my name was Glynnis.” Cailleach stooped by the not-yet-blooming hawthorn bush and laid the staff under the shrub. “I now ask to again be only Glynnis.”
Faolan moved to stand beside Glynnis. She placed a pale hand on the wolf’s head for support as she stood in the center of the clearing.
Aisling felt the pull, the insistence that she pick up the staff. She stepped forward.
Donnchadh’s voice whispered through the trees, “Deny her. Deny the cold.” He eased from the shadows; still-wet mud caked his bare feet. “Would you give up our dances beside the river?”
Like a hare in an open meadow, Aisling froze—going neither toward the shrub nor toward the trees.
Donnchadh edged closer. “Did you enjoy feasting on dew and berries under the warm sun?”
Aisling nodded.
“There’s much I can show you now that you’re too old to Sleep; there are pleasures in the sunlight that you’ve yet to know.” Donnchadh, the Summer King, knelt in front of her and held out his fawn-colored hand. “Stay with me, my Aisling.”
Her sisters drifted into the clearing behind Donnchadh. “Listen to the Summer King: come with us.”
“Each Sleeping Girl since Glynnis has chosen to stay with me in the sunlight.” Donnchadh glanced briefly at Glynnis, his eyes wistful. “Glynnis chose to take the staff; she carries the cold. You do not have to.”
Glynnis said nothing, but her whitening fingers tightened on Faolan’s pelt.
In a voice like sunbeams Donnchadh asked, “Is this what you would choose, to carry winter’s chill? To vanquish me every year?”
Aisling wavered, looking at the face that had greeted her each previous waking for as long as she could remember. She’d thought about the things she would know if she stayed with him, the laughter and the dance, the kisses she’d seen him bestow on her sisters. She wanted that. She lifted a hand, her fingertips almost brushing Donnchadh’s face. To wait inside the warm cabin with her sisters guarding the next Sleeping Girl through the winter, watching the snow fall; to spend the warm seasons with Donnchadh for eternity—these were fancies she’d pondered in silence for many years.
He held her gaze. “Stay with me in the sunlight.”
Behind her, Cailleach Glynnis was silent. She did not remind Aisling that a new Sleeping Girl would not yet be old enough for several seasons. She did not whisper the weighty truth: that winter’s snows could not drift deeply unless the Cailleach carried the cold. She did not admit that she was weary.
Glynnis did not say a word.
The beauty of Winter would be forever lost to Aisling if she chose to go with Donnchadh. Those brief moments when snow cloaked her would be forgotten in time. The freedom to walk where she chose, the privacy she’d known: these would be gone. She would only walk where Donnchadh chose; she would be as one with her sisters, but not her own person.
In that instant Aisling knew she’d made her choice. As a girl, she woke the earth; as a woman, she would drape the earth in her cold blankets. “I will feel the kiss of Winter, not wait and watch from inside the cabin.”
Quickly, Aisling leaned down and wrapped her arms around Donnchadh, embracing him one last time.
Then she walked over to the hawthorn and grasped the staff. “I am Cailleach. As those before me, I will carry the wind and ice.”
Ripe with sorrow, Donnchadh’s voice carried on a warm breeze, “Fare thee well, Aisling. I shall think of you and what could have been.”
Black clouds gathered and ripped open, drenching them.
Aisling lifted Glynnis in her arms, cradling her.
The old woman rested her head on Aisling’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Thank you, daughter.”
Aisling lowered Glynnis to the ground as the earth opened, accepting Glynnis into the soil she’d tended for so long. “Be at peace, Glynnis.”
Then—eager to be out of the growing brightness of the sun—Aisling wrapped her blue fingers around the staff and walked away from the Summer King.
Clutching the silk-smooth wood of her staff, Cailleach Aisling walks among the trees. She taps it, sending freezing fingers into the soil, the first taste of the winter that will soon follow. Beside her, Faolan lopes, waiting to carry her on his great back when they cross the river.
Aisling pauses and murmurs, “The snows shall fall heavy this winter.”
Faolan nudges her with his massive head, keeping her on the path. Silently, Aisling crosses the growing carpet of white, peering into windows, her cold breath leaving frozen snow flowers on the glass.
Finally, she reaches a house outlined by the moon’s silvered light. Inside, a girl waits, restless in her bed.
Tilting her face to the gray sky, Aisling opens her mouth. Winds shriek, chilling those slumbering under warm quilts. She spins in the swiftly spiraling snow, and icicles gather on the branches above her.
Frozen tears of joy clatter to the ground as Aisling looks on the winter beauty. The trees shimmer under starlight. White puffs drift in the crisp air as Faolan huffs beside her. And the earth—the waiting soil—is covered by downy snow, unmarred by track or furrow. There is beauty here that she’d once only imagined.
The girl steps onto the porch. She is but a child, hair in braids, but she comes as the Sleeping Girl must. She whispers, “Do
you summon me, Cailleach?”
Aisling answers, “Not yet, little one. Sleep now.”
The girl tumbles to the soft snow, and Aisling gathers the child in her arms.
She carries the girl to the cabin, where the Sleeping Girl’s sisters wait. They accept the Sleeping Girl from her and carry her farther into the house.
As he has every year since she became Cailleach, Donnchadh stands at the threshold. He brushes his warm fingers over Aisling’s cheek. “I thought of you these long months. It is strange pleasure to look forward to the snows.”
She holds her breath as he brushes his lips across hers. The moment before vanquishing him is still new, will always be new—but it must come. Winter must end Summer, just as the Sleeping Girl must call him back in a few short months.
Gently, Aisling whispers, “Donnchadh…”
And at the touch of her icy breath, he vanishes.
“Until spring,” she whispers into the empty air.
So Cailleach Aisling turns back to the frozen night; she has much to do before the new Sleeping Girl wakes the earth and Donnchadh reigns again.
COTTON
CANDY
SKIES
THE SKY WAS THE COLOR OF COTTON candy. Tish would like that. Rabbit hadn’t made it through a day yet without thinking about his sister. She’d been dead for two months now—two months during which he’d watched his other sister become one of the rulers of Faerie. Ani and Tish had been the children he never expected to have; they’d been his to raise since Ani was a toddler, chin jutting out, Hunt-green eyes narrowed, clutching seven-year-old Tish’s hand.
The paintbrush in his hand hung limp. Some days he was able to paint, but this morning didn’t feel like it was going to be one of them. He stared at the sky. The clouds were thin wisps, stretched-out bands of darker pink woven into a pale pink background. Trees, some familiar and others peculiar, popped up in the landscape, not always where they’d been the day before—or perhaps the moment before. Few things were predictable in Faerie. That part he liked. Feeling useless, however, was a lot less appealing. In the mortal world, he had a function—he’d raised his two half sisters, been in the employ of the Dark King, and had a thriving tattoo studio. Here, he had no responsibilities at all.
“It’s hers.” One of the other artists, a faery woman with stars always slipping in and out of her eyes, leaned against a low wall outside his cottage. “The sky. She colored it today.”
Rabbit looked away from the artist. If he stared too long at her, he had trouble remembering to breathe. He watched falling stars, comets that whipped past, entire nebulae all glinting in her night-sky eyes. Every time he looked at her, he had to force himself to pull away. Something about her intensity made him fear that he’d get trapped in her gaze. He wasn’t sure if such a thing was truly possible, but he was living in Faerie, a land where the impossible was more likely than the expected.
“Not your her,” she said.
“My her?” Rabbit asked.
“The Shadow Queens. The girl that is two girls.” The artist walked toward him.
Talking to the artist was one of the few joys Rabbit could count on. She was unexpected in the way that not even the fluid world around him was, but she had a sense of calm about her that he craved. Before, when he was the person he’d been for all but these past two months, he’d have asked her to grab a drink or dance, but the idea of doing something so free now made him fill with guilt. Logically, he knew he wasn’t at fault for surviving, but if he could trade his life in for Tish’s, he’d do so in an instant. With conscious effort, Rabbit stopped pondering that.
“Will you tell me your name today?” he asked.
She smiled. “You could ask the queens.”
“I could,” he agreed. “It’s your name, though. I told you mine.”
“No.” She took his brush, touched the tip of it to her lips, and started painting in the air. Glimmering bits of light hovered in the empty space in front of him. “You told me a name that is not what I should call you.”
Silently, he watched as she created a flower in the open air and beside it a small rabbit that lifted its head and watched them. The rabbit she’d drawn seemed to be rolling in the grass in front of a cluster of yew trees. The illusory rabbit startled, and then ran under the lowest branches where it peered up at the sky sadly.
She handed him his brush. “You are not a small animal.”
“My father called me ‘Rabbit,’ and my sisters did, and … it’s who I am,” Rabbit explained to her again.
She sighed. “It is not all of who you are.”
“They were my life,” he whispered. “Before my sisters… I wasn’t worth anything, and if they don’t need me… I am nothing.”
Gently, the artist covered his hand, and he felt cold flow from her skin into his.
“Starlight,” she murmured. “Close your eyes so you can see.”
The words made no sense, but the feel of her body against his was one of the few things that made him feel anything other than hollow. She filled his emptiness with something pure, and even as he felt that light slide into his skin, he tried to escape her touch.
“Paint,” she urged. “Keep your eyes closed and paint.”
He felt tears slip from his closed eyes as he moved his brush. There was no canvas, nothing that would contain the images that he saw in his mind, and he wasn’t sure if he’d see them hovering in the air if he opened his eyes. Unlike tattoos, these images were temporary.
Her hand rested atop his as he painted in the air. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there.
Today, when Rabbit watched her go, he felt like he kept some of that peace she gave him by her presence.
As he watched them, Devlin considered intervening: Olivia was a perplexing creature on her most lucid days. She turned to stare directly at him, and then held a finger to her lips.
He startled. While he was hidden in the shadows cast by the side of the cottage, she shouldn’t see him. It was a trick that he found useful for observing the working of Faerie without the fey or mortals noticing him.
Olivia continued walking toward her own home, and after ascertaining that Rabbit was as fine as he seemed to be on most days, Devlin followed Olivia.
Once they were inside, she sat on the floor. The main room had no furniture at all. It was a bare space with pillows scattered over a woven-mat floor.
“The shadows hurt my eyes today.” She waved her hand at him. “Make them go.”
At a loss, Devlin did so, letting the darkness he wore to hide himself sink back under his skin. No longer hidden, he motioned at the floor. “May I?”
“For a moment.” Olivia kicked a few pillows toward him.
“You can see me.”
“I have eyes.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Do you not see you?”
“I do, but I was hidden. The others—”
“Are not me.” Olivia sighed, and then reached out and patted his knee. “I’m glad you have the girl who is two. When one gets confused, it is good to have help. Maybe you should not go out alone?”
“Maybe…”
“The girl used to stay in your skin when you visited me,” Olivia said. “It is why you weren’t willing to share my cot?”
“I… you…”
Gently, Olivia squeezed his hand. “Do you need me to take you to her? It can be confusing to walk alone when you are not meant to be alone.”
“You are kind, Livvy.” Devlin pulled his hand free of her grasp. “Do others see me when I wear shadows?”
Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. “Why would they? They are not me.”
“True.” Devlin smiled then. “Will you tell me if Rabbit needs me?
“That’s not his name,” she murmured.
“Right. Well, him… Will you tell me if he needs me?”
She nodded. “He needs me, but he’s not sure of it yet. Soon, though.”
For a moment, Devlin watched her. Years ago, he’d learned that waiting was
useful when dealing with Olivia. Her sense of time was unique, as was her sense of order.
Hours passed. Of that, Rabbit was fairly sure. What he didn’t know was how many hours passed. The sky didn’t shift as it had in the mortal world, and between the irregular landscape and the numbing grief, he wasn’t ever entirely sure of the time.
“Are you feeling any better?” Ani stood in a band of shadows that seemed to flex and pulse like water.
Idly, Rabbit wondered if she noticed the shadowed air.
“Rab?”
His sister walked up to him and took something from his hand. He realized that he was still holding the paintbrush he’d picked up when he’d started the day. With effort, he uncurled his hands.
“You need to… I don’t know.” Ani wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her face against his chest. “I need you well, Rab.”
“I’m trying.” He stroked her hair. “I don’t know how to be something here, though. The world I knew was over there. My family, my girls, my father … my art. My court.”
His baby sister looked up at him. “You have family and court and art here too.”
“I do.” He forced a smile to his lips. “I’m sorry.”
Tears filled her eyes. “You don’t need to be sorry. I just need you to be well again. I want you to snarl at me. I want you to laugh.”
“I will,” he promised. With his thumb, he caught a tear on her cheek and wiped it away. “Come inside. Tell me about your day.”
Ani snuggled against his side and together they went into the little house that was his. She’d invited him to live with her, offered him a replica of their old home, even offered him the right to design whatever he wanted. Instead, he stayed in the artists’ area.
Because I can be alone here.
He wasn’t trying to be maudlin, but he’d lost his sister, seen Irial stabbed, and had no word from Gabriel. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he would, either. The gate between Faerie and the mortal world was sealed, open only for Seth unless both the High Court and Shadow Court cooperated.
It wasn’t that Rabbit wanted to go to that world. He just wasn’t sure what he was to do here in Faerie. It had been over a decade since he was without a responsibility.